Sunday, December 30, 2012

A holiday dedicated to chess compositions is organized by "Chess Club Zinon Glyfada (Greece)" on Sunday, January 6, 2013 in the afternoon, from 18:15 to 20:30. Youngsters and grown-ups which already have experience of the chess game, but small or none experience of the chess problems, will have the opportunity to be initiated to the beautiful world of Chess Compositions by the Champion Nikos Mendrinos. Then, they will try their hand in various relevant contests with properly chosen problems and they will attend - or take part in - a Chess Solving show (with awards books, cup and medals). They will also be introduced to top Greek problemists.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Traditionally, this time of each year the chess-composers send greeting cards to their friends with nice compositions. With the present advancement of the technology, the bloggers post these compositions in their blogs.
Some of these problems have special shape, like a Christmas tree.
On this post, together with cordial wishes for general improvement of the situations in our lives, I present three problems of mine with tree-like or conical shapes.
The third takes the shape of a tree, after you solve it!

The Grasshopper is an obstacle-jumping piece. It moves in straight line on a row or a file or a diagonal, jumps over an obstacle and steps on the next square. (If the obstacle is missing, the move is not allowed. If behind the obstacle there is an opponent piece, it is captured).

Sunday, December 16, 2012

In helpmates, the black plays first and helps the white to give mate. There is no adversativity (unlike OTB games), but cooperation for a common goal.
In duplex problems there is another solution, where the white plays first and helps the black to give mate. Cooperation in the fullest.
Nikos Pergialis is the last rebetis (creator - singer of rebetiko songs) and he likes to write verses for his chess compositions!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

On blog Julia's Fairies was published the award for the first thematic tourney, hsp-2012.
The theme was "play with batteries or anti-batteries in HSP compositions with fairy pieces and/or conditions".
69 compositions from 39 composers from 20 countries have participated.
See the Award here.

Monday, November 26, 2012

(See (lower left in picture) that I have not put in its place the wPf4 in the two-mover. Eventually, after several minutes, I thought "this could be solved if it had a wPf4". I looked in the sheet of problems, and there it was!)

The Solving Contest of Attica 2012 took place in Booze Cooperativa (57 Kolokotroni str., Athens) with cooperation of ESSNA (Union of Chess Clubs in Attica) and "Athletic Club Zinon of Glyfada" on Sunday, November 25 afternoon, last 1 hour and 45 minutes (not 2,5 hours as planned). After the contest, in memory of Lorenzo Mabillis poet, fighter and chessplayer, and his heroic death a hundred years ago, started a presentation of facts and pictures of Mabillis, his life and his era.
In the contest six problems should be solved, 12 solvers gave answers, and many other visitors passed and received information.

Winner was Nikos Mendrinos with 24 points (in 30 maximum), second was Leokratis Anemodouras with 20 points, third was John Garoufalidis with 18 points, fourth was Emmanuel Manolas with 16,fifth was Harry Fougiaxis with 15 and in sixth position two solvers, Kostas Kordis and Alexandros Seilemezis with 13.
The compositions were relevant with the work of the pioneer Greek composers of 19th century, Dr D. Melissinos, Joseph Liberalis, Nicolas Miniatis and Lorenzo Mabillis. A musical work was heard again after many years of latency, "Elegy for the death of the great American chessplayer Paul Murphy", composed by the Greek Joseph Liberalis in 1884.

With the first move, White foresees that mate can be achieved whatever the Black plays. Then there are selfblocks, while the black Rook corrects its arrival square trying to defend.Problem of the physician and mathematician Dionyssios Melissinos (1836-1905), 4th prize in the Fourth American Chess Congress 1880, (where the American Sam Loyd took the third prize).

Study by Kyriakos Frangoulis from Nydri (in island Lefkada), published in the German magazine Schach in 1982. Kyriakos Frangoulis was the only Greek composer for chess studies. His first study was published in 1978. At November 22, fifteen years had passed since his death.

Nicolas Miniatis (1860-1943), son of a Greek freight broker, lived in Manchester of England and was top player in the period 1885-1895. He is known for the 1890 match, which lost 4-1, versus the later world champion Lasker.

Problem-636

Sam Loyd (version by Eduard Schildberg)
Chess Monthly, 11/1860

6R1/7q/8/5k2/3K1B2/8/8/8 (3 + 2)

h#3 (Helpmate three-mover)

1.Kf6 Ra8 2.Kg7 Bb8 3.Kh8 Be5#

It is a more economic version of the first helpmate composition of all times, published by the top (till today) composer of chess problems, the American SamLoyd, in the magazine "ChessMonthly" in November 1860.
(The initial problem by Sam Loyd had a black Bishop on h2).

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The important chess composer Dan Meinking died yesterday of heart attack.
An obituary was posted in The Cincinnati Enquirer. RIP Dan.
He had created great chess compositions and other brain games (Alpha Sleuth, Lexmaze).
He liked to work together with other composers (see here the Problem-204).
A collection of his problems is here.

To composer achieves his goal with continuous checks and pins. The pieces have great mobility. There are Switchbacks and Circuits of the pieces. The final mate image is Echo Chameleon (=the bK is mated in a squares of different colours) in Diagonal Mirror position.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

To celebrate Milan’s 75th birthday, StrateGems is announcing a jubilee tourney in the following sections:
Section A - Twomovers, Judge: Vasyl Dyachuk
Section B - Threemovers, Judge: Robert Burger
Section C - Moremovers, Judge: Richard Becker
Section D - Helpmates, Judge: Dan Meinking
Section E - Selfmates, Judge: Petko A. Petkov
The theme for the tourney is free. A special consideration will be given to compositions which show one (or more) of Milan’s favorite themes: Reciprocal Change, Bristol, Novotny and Grimshaw.
Prizes in books and free subscriptions will be given to all prize winners. An electronic version (PDF) of StrateGems, with the tourney results, will be emailed to all tourney participants.
Send to: Mike Prcic Tuzlak@aol.com
Closing date: 31.12.2012

Friday, November 16, 2012

We proceed with 5 more compositions of the Greek problemist Nikos Pergialis, the last rebetis (composer and singer of Rebetiko songs).
Here are three twomovers and two more-movers, one 4-mover and one 6-mover. After the solutions we write the themes in these problems. I say again that he likes compositions with at most 12 pieces (Meredith) and Ideal mates.

Theme Vladimirov : [Two try-moves are also mate-moves in two variations]. They are denoted as Α and Β.Theme Elmgren : [At least three black pieces are defending in tries.]. Here are defending all the black pieces.Theme Option : [The same white piece is making at-least two try-moves and the key-move]. Here, the wQ.Theme Grab : [The defending piece is captured in more than two variations]. Here, the black Knight is captured in three variations.Anti-Quadruple : The black Knight is defending from four positions, with result four different mates. Duel Black - White.

The key creates a Knight-Bishop battery but exposes the wK to check danger.Theme White Knight Wheel [the wSe4 moves to eight positions. Task!]. The lifting of this Knight fires the battery and creates eight threats.Theme Pseudo-Fleck : [The multiple key-threats are separated with eight from the black defences]. It is a Pseudo-Fleck because there are black moves not separating the key-threats.
Duel Black-White. There are mates with mirror symmetry.

One of our readers, Alotan, has informed us that this problem is anticipated: "The #6 (Νο.629) reminds me of something. A search in WinChloe gives the (Kh1, Rf2, Sf3 - Kd1), #6, Hilmar Ebert, Problem 1977: 1.Ra2! etc.. With such a few pieces, it is almost impossible to avoid anticipation. Especially for orthodox problems, which are almost exhausted".
These things happen! We will continue with other compositions of Nikos Pergialis.

Ont he occasion of the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Hungarian chess-problem
composer candidate-master József BAJTAY and the 60th anniversary of the birth of the
Hungarian 1st-class chess-problem composer László SZABÓ, a memorial tourney will be
held in the following classes:
I.: Selfmates in 11 or more moves. Free theme. Judge József PÁSZTOR.
II.: Helpmates in 4 or more moves. Free theme. Judge: János CSÁK.
Entries, with diagram, full solution and name(s) and adress(es) of author(s), should be sent to
the organizer: Béla MAJOROS at majoroschess@gmail.com .
Deadline for entries: 31 December 2012

Sunday, November 11, 2012

In a Greek blog we saw a comment about pawn promotion, where it seems that subpromotion is not important:
"...we promote almost always to Queen. ... The promotion to another piece has no meaning, because their moves is a subset of the Queen moves."

We have repeaterly given examples where we do not win by getting more power, but by getting the proper piece. In the theme AUW (=Allumwandlung, all the promotions) especially, we have seen many compositions where all the promotions occur in one variation or in more variations during the solutions.

Remember something that Darwin said, that "in life survives not the strongest species, nor the more clever, but the most adaptive to its environment."

We will see here four miniature compositions by Nikos Pergialis, where the white pawns start from their initial positions and reach a promotion square (this is the theme Excelsior), and they must be promoted to a different piece in each problem to satisfy the stipulation, helpmate in six moves. In some compositions we have Double Excelsior, where pawns of both colors are promoted.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

From mr Nikos Pergialis comes another task (a six-bullet-gun, as he said) with Royal Battery. (The previous one is here)
(In the Royal battery one King moves discovering a piece which checks the other King. We can have at most 6 variations in an orthodox problem. If this happens, the composer has achieved a task).

Comment by the composer ...

"If black attempts to give check, he dies instantly. Let some venerables see this six-bullet-gun, this Royal task with 12 pieces, and not be indifferent to the rules of chess composition.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

I have received the booklet with the results of the compositions during WCCC 2012 in Kobe Japan, in electronic form. I present here tourneys and results, writing in bold what is relevant with the Greek composers.
The composers Themis Argirakopoulos, Kostas Prentos (this year has moved to USA) and Emmanuel Manolas have earned distinctions.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

FM Spiros Ilantzis writes (and we thank him) about a solving chess-problems contest, which was organised by Chess Group of Heraklion Crete (SOI, http://www.soi.gr/website) as parallel event for 6th OPEN tourney (see here).

[Last Saturday they called me from Heraklion (Crete) and I went there to organize a Solving Contest. Of course, they asked for problems orthodox and easy.

The solving contest commenced at 11:15, with 22 solvers (15 experienced, plus some "passing by") -but not the “big names” (Logothetis, Lyrintzakis, Maris, Stavrianakis, Xylogiannopoulos, Mylonakis – players of ELO 2100-2330 who took part in the parallel tourney, they did not come).
I had prepared 6, rather easy, problems, 5 two-movers and 1 three-mover (by Loyd). I allowed them time 1 hour 45' (instead of 3 hours stated in the initial announcement), There was not any need to tire them more...

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Dear friends of the chess problems, during some recent years I was posting various subjects on this blog, trying to cover the omissions of the greek chess-literature or to promote things which held my interest. To be honest, some posts were written by friends.
But you may have some things in doubt about the chess composition, and you were not given the chance to ask.

It is your turn now to ask of us to answer your inquiries.
What is it, that you want to read about, here in this blog? Write your question in the comments.
We do not know everything, but we will try to answer.

Two notes by Alkinoos:
(1) Do not think that I have found myself in lack of material! I have, for example, 25 new originals by the rebetis Nikos Pergialis, best studies of some years and awards of composition tourneys. Simply, I have thought it would be good to ask you.
(2) Sorry that the posts here are somehow scarse, but this is the time of WCCC in Kobe Japan and I keep myself busy trying to compose entries for these tourneys.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The condition KoBul kings is a fairy condition, (that is with this condition the problem is not orthodox any more), proposed by the composer Diyan Kostadinov from Bulgaria. (KoBul = Kostadinov Bulgaria). With this condition, the kings change abilities of moving and capturing, acquiring the abilities of the friendly piece most recently captured. The kings return to the abilities of a simple King when a friendly pawn is captured.

The condition has got interesting strategic applications, which become apparent just as the kings acquire super-powers(!), but soon the time for the checkmate comes. In the present post we are interested only for compositions where the king is mated in five of his phases, (in the final pictures of the five checkmates appears as king, as queen, as rook, as bishop, as knight), which we have named as 5-phasic.

Let suppose that bK is going to be mated.
In the initial position he may be in king's phase (bK), or already in another phase (bQK or bRK or bBK or bSK), and we need one move less. We may have Forsberg twins, where for each twin the bK changes phase on its square.
The bK can change phase when a black piece, already present on the board, is captured or a black pawn might have previously been promoted to a black piece (and that means we need one more move). We may have Forsberg twins, where for each twin a black piece changes type (bQ or bR or bB or bS or bP) on its square.
The promoted piece can be captured on the promotion square or after it moves to another square, (and that means we need one more move).

Monday, August 27, 2012

There are composers of chess problems in various countries of the world.
In some countries there is support from the state, there are schools with teachers and students, and they have production of nice compositions.
On the other hand, something odd has been observed in Greece : in various times there is lack of peace - comfort - good health - free time, and again some important composers appear.
An example was Demetrius Kapralos. In our era, an example is the last Rebetis (remember the rebetiko song!), the aged but productive Nikos Pergialis.

Below you see a direct two-mover of his, with white royal battery (the king is the front piece and when he moves, the rear piece delivers mate). For the royal battery, the maximum number of thematic variations in an orthodox two-mover is six. Nikos Pergialis achieves that, this is a Task, and he says

This Task, my urchin friends,I bring to you with pride.With only a dozen pieces- I think it is first time!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

It is quite interesting and there are already about 100 problems published, some of which were lucky enough to receive comments from excellent composers (teachers actually!).

I have also sent some problems and she have posted them in two nice pages. Many thanks again from here!

Four problems with KoBul kings (they take the properties of a captured friendly piece, they return to normality when a a friendly pawn is captured), that may be seen here : http://juliasfairies.com/problems/page-41

Friday, August 17, 2012

The first declarations of composition tourneys have started to appear, for the 55th WCCC (World Congress of Chess Composition) which is about to begin for 2012 in Kobe, Japan. Simultaneously, there will be held the 36th WCSC (World Chess Solving Championship).
Official web-page : http://wccc2012kobe.com/
.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Alexis Murillo Tsijli, an International Master from Costa Rica, during his presence in Greece for visiting relatives and playing chess in various summer tourneys, asked to meet me. I accepted and the appointment was set for Nea Smirni (Athens, Greece). For easy recognition, I was wearing a t-shirt with a chess-queen, a gift from the friendly Italian composers (see API, Associazione Problemistica Italiana) since last year in Jesi, where the WCCC was held.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

During the World Congress of Chess Composition (WCCC) of 2010 in Crete, there were various composition contests.
For the 13th Sabra Composing Ty, we should compose an orthodox helpmate two-mover, where
B1 (first black move) : a black piece captures a white which closes a line
W1 (first white move) : a white piece, of line movement, arrives on this line
B2 (second black move) : the black piece, which made the capture, moves.

The Exercise is the following :
For the following position, (heterodoxe, because on d8 there is a Grasshopper), there are solutions when the bK is placed on squares e8 and g8.
Try to find a very economical modification (translocation or addition or removal of a piece), with which the problem has solution when the bK is placed on square c8.

Exercises of the day

Every day the website www.shredderchess.com offers to the readers of the blogs three easy chess exercises. They are given in three levels of difficulty, (L1, L2, and L3), and you may give the solution by moving the pieces with the mouse pointer. Below the diagram is then shown if the answer is correct or not.

If you miss OTB play...

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